A Spanish Cook--Philosophy of Spanish Cuisine--Sauce--Difficulty of
Commissariat--The Provend--Spanish Hares and Rabbits--The
Olla--Garbanzo--Spanish Pigs--Bacon and Hams--Omelette--Salad and
Gazpacho.
It would exhaust a couple of Colonial numbers at least to discuss
properly the merits and digest Spanish cookery. All that can be now done
is to skim the subject, which is indeed fat and unctuous. Those meats
and drinks will be briefly noticed which are daily occurrence, and those
dishes described which we have often helped to make, and oftener helped
to eat, in the most larderless _ventas_ and hungriest districts of the
Peninsula, and which provident wayfarers may make and eat again, and, as
we pray, with no worse appetite.
[Sidenote: THE NATIONAL COOKERY.]
To be a good cook, which few Spaniards are, a man must not only
understand his master’s taste, but be able to make something out of
nothing; just as a clever French _artiste_ converts an old shoe into an
épigramme d’agneau, or a Parisian milliner dresses up two deal boards
into a fine live _Madame_, whose only fault is the appearance of too
much embonpoint. Genuine and legitimate Spanish dishes are excellent in
their way, for no man nor man-cook ever is ridiculous when he does not
attempt to be what he is not. The _au naturel_ may occasionally be
somewhat plain, but seldom makes one sick; at all events it would be as
hopeless to make a Spaniard understand real French cookery as to
endeavour to explain to a député the meaning of our constitution or
parliament. The ruin of Spanish cooks is their futile attempts to
imitate foreign ones: just as their silly grandees murder the glorious
Castilian tongue, by substituting what they fancy is pure Parisian,
which they speak _comme des vaches Espagnoles_. _Dis moi ce que tu
manges et je te dirai ce que tu es_ is “un mot profond” of the great
equity judge, Brillat Savarin, who also discovered that “_Les destinées
des nations dépendent de la manière dont elles se nourrissent_;” since
which General Foy has attributed all the _accidental_ victories of the
British to rum and beef. And this great fact much enhances our serious
respect for punch, and our true love for the _ros-bif_ of old England,
of which, by the way, very little will be got in the Peninsula, where
bulls are bred for baiting, and oxen for the plough, not the spit.
[Sidenote: SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS.]
The national cookery of Spain is for the most part Oriental; and the
ruling principle of its preparation is _stewing_; for, from a scarcity
of fuel, roasting is almost unknown; their notion of which is putting
meat into a pan, setting it in hot ashes, and then covering the lid with
burning embers. The pot, or _olla_, has accordingly become a synonyme
for the dinner of Spaniards, just as beefsteaks or frogs are vulgarly
supposed to constitute the whole bill of fare of two other mighty
nations. Wherever meats are bad and thin, the sauce is very important;
it is based in Spain on oil, garlic, saffron, and red peppers. In hot
countries, where beasts are lean, oil supplies the place of fat, as
garlic does the want of flavour, while a stimulating condiment excites
or curries up the coats of a languid stomach. It has been said of our
heretical countrymen that we have but one form of sauce--melted
butter--and a hundred different forms of religion, whereas in orthodox
Spain there is but one of each, and, as with religion, so to change this
sauce would be little short of heresy. As to colour, it carries that
rich burnt umber, raw sienna tint, which Murillo imitated so well; and
no wonder, since he made his particular brown from baked olla bones,
whence it was extracted, as is done to this day by those Spanish
painters who indulge in meat. This brown _negro de hueso_ colour is the
livery of tawny Spain, where all is brown from the _Sierra Morena_ to
duskier man. Of such hue is his cloak, his terra-cotta house, his wife,
his ox, his ass, and everything that is his. This sauce has not only the
same colour, but the same flavour everywhere; hence the difficulty of
making out the material of which any dish is composed. Not Mrs. Glass
herself could tell, by taste at least, whether the ingredients of the
cauldron be hare or cat, cow or calf, the aforesaid ox or ass. It
puzzles even the acumen of a Frenchman; for it is still the great boast
of the town of Olvera that they served up some donkeys as rations to a
Buonapartist detachment. All this is very Oriental. Isaac could not
distinguish tame kid from wild venison, so perplexing was the disguise
of the savoury sauce; and yet his senses of smell and touch were keen,
and his suspicions of unfair cooking were awakened. A prudent diner,
therefore, except when forced to become his own cook, will never look
too closely into the things of the kitchen if he wishes to live a quiet
life; for _quien las cosas mucho apura, no vive vida segura_.
All who ride or run through the Peninsula, will read thirst in the arid
plains, and hunger in the soil-denuded hills, where those who ask for
bread will receive stones. The knife and fork question has troubled
every warrior in Spain, from Henri IV. down to Wellington; “subsistence
is the great difficulty always found” is the text of a third of the
Duke’s wonderful despatches. This scarcity of food is implied in the
very name of Spain, Σπανια, which means poverty and
destitution, as well as in the term _Bisoños_, wanters, which long has
been a synonyme for Spanish soldiers, who are always, as the Duke
described them, “hors de combat,” “always _wanting_ in every thing at
the critical moment.” Hunger and thirst have ever been, and are, the
best defenders of the Peninsula against the invader. On sierra and
steppe these gaunt sentinels keep watch and ward, and, on the scarecrow
principle, protect this paradise, as they do the infernal regions of
Virgil--
“Malesuada fames et turpis egestas
Horribiles visu.”
A riding tour through Spain has already been likened to serving a
campaign; and it was a saying of the Grand Condé, “If you want to know
what want is, carry on a war in Spain.” Yet, notwithstanding the
thousands of miles which we have ridden, never have we yet felt that
dire necessity, which has been kept at a respectable distance by a
constant unremitting attention to the proverb, A man forewarned is
forearmed. _Hombre prevenido nunca fu vencido_, there is nothing like
precaution and _provision_. “If you mean to dine,” writes the
all-providing Duke to Lord Hill from Moraleja, “_you had better bring
your things_, as I shall have nothing with me;”--the ancient Bursal
fashion holds good on Spanish roads:--
“Regula Bursalis est omni tempere talis,
Prandia fer tecum, si vis comedere mecum.”
[Sidenote: EATING ON THE ROAD.]
A man who is prepared, is never beaten or starved; therefore, as the
valorous Dalgetty has it, a prudent man will always victual himself in
Spain with vivers for three days at least, and his cook, like Sancho
Panza, should have nothing else in his head, but thoughts how to convey
the most eatables into his ambulant larder.
He must set forth from every tolerable-sized town with an ample supply
of tea, sugar, coffee, brandy, good oil, wine, salt, to say nothing of
solids. The having something ready gives him leisure to forage and make
ulterior preparations. Those who have a _corps de réserve_ to fall back
upon--say a cold turkey and a ham--can always convert any spot in the
desert into an oasis; at the same time the connection between body and
soul may be kept up by trusting to _venta_ luck, of which more anon; it
offers, however, but a miserable existence to persons of judgment. And
even when this precaution of provision be not required, there are never
wanting in Spain the poor and hungry, to whom the taste of meat is
almost unknown, and to whom these crumbs that fall from the rich man’s
table are indeed a feast; the relish and gratitude with which these
fragments are devoured do as much good to the heart of the donor as to
the stomach of the donees, for the best medicines of the poor are to be
found in the cellars, kitchens, and hampers of the rich. All servants
should be careful of their traps and stores, which are liable to be
pilfered and plundered in _ventas_, where the élite of society is not
always assembled: the luggage should be well corded, for the devil is
always a gleaning, _ata al saco, ya espiga el diablo_.
Formerly all travellers of rank carried a silver olla with a key, the
_guardacena_, the _save_ supper. This ingenious contrivance has
furnished matter for many a pleasantry in picaresque tales and farces.
Madame Daunoy gives us the history of what befel the good Archbishop of
Burgos and his orthodox olla.
[Sidenote: HARES AND RABBITS.]
There is nothing in life like making a good start; thus the party
arrives safely at the first resting-place. The cook must never appear to
have anything when he arrives at an inn; he must get from others all he
can, and much is to be had for asking and crying, as even a Spanish
Infante knows--the child that does not cry is not suckled, _quien no
llora, no mama_; the artiste must never fall back on his own reservoirs
except in cases of absolute need; during the day he must open his eyes
and ears and must pick up everything eatable, and where he can and when
he can. By keeping a sharp look-out and going quietly to work the cook
may catch the hen and her chickens too. All is fish that comes into the
net, and, like Buonaparte and his marshals, nothing should be too great
for his ambition, nothing too small for his rapacity. Of course he will
pay for his collections, which the aforesaid gentry did not: thus fruit,
onions, salads, which, as they must be bought somewhere, had better be
secured whenever they turn up. The peasants, who are sad poachers, will
constantly hail travellers from the fields with offers of partridges,
rabbits, melons, hares, which always jump up in this pays de l’imprévu
when you least expect it: _Salta la liebre cuando menos uno piensa_.
Notwithstanding Don Quixote thought that it augured bad luck to meet
with a hare on entering a village, let not a bold traveller be scared,
but forthwith stew the omen; a hare, as in the time of Martial, is
considered by Spaniards to be the glory of edible quadrupeds, and to
this day no old stager ever takes a rabbit when he can get a hare, _á
perro viejo echale liebre y no conejo_. In default however of catching
one, rabbits may always be bagged. Spain abounds with them to such a
degree, that ancient naturalists thought the animal indigenous, and went
so far as to derive the name Spain from _Sephan_, the rabbit, which the
Phœnicians found here for the first time. Be that as it may, the
long-eared timid creature appears on the early Iberian coins, as it will
long do on her wide wastes and tables. By the bye, a ready-stewed rabbit
or hare is to be eschewed as suspicious in a _venta_: at the same time,
if the consumer does not find out that it is a cat, there is no great
harm done--ignorance is bliss; let him not know it, he is not robbed at
all. It is a pity to dispel his gastronomic delusion, as it is the
knowledge of the cheat that kills, and not the cat. Pol! me occidistis,
amici. The cook therefore should ascertain beforehand what are the bonâ
fide ingredients of every dish that he sets before his lord.
[Sidenote: THE OLLA PODRIDA.]
In going into the kitchens of the Peninsula, precedence must on every
account be given to the _olla_: this word means at once a species of
prepared food, and the earthenware utensil in which it is dressed, just
as our term _dish_ is applicable to the platter and to what is served on
it. Into this _olla_ it may be affirmed that the whole culinary genius
of Spain is condensed, as the mighty Jinn was into a gallipot, according
to the Arabian Night tales. The lively and gastronomic French, who are
decidedly the leaders of European civilization in the kitchen, deride
the barbarous practices of the Gotho-Iberians, as being darker than
Erebus and more ascetic than æsthetic; to credit their authors, a
Peninsular breakfast consists of a teaspoonful of chocolate, a dinner,
of a knob of garlic soaked in water, and a supper, of a paper cigarette;
and according to their _parfait cuisinier_, the _olla_ is made of two
cigars boiled in three gallons of water--but this is a calumny, a mere
invention devised by the enemy.
The _olla_ is only well made in Andalucia, and there alone in careful,
well-appointed houses; it is called a _puchero_ in the rest of Spain,
where it is but a poor affair, made of dry beef, or rather cow, boiled
with _garbanzos_ or chick peas, and a few sausages. These _garbanzos_
are the vegetable, the potato of the land; and their use argues a low
state of horticultural knowledge. The taste for them was introduced by
the Carthaginians--the _puls punica_, which (like the _fides punica_, an
especial ingredient in all Spanish governments and finance) afforded
such merriment to Plautus, that he introduced the chick-pea eating
Pœnus, pultiphagonides, speaking Punic, just as Shakspere did the
toasted-cheese eating Welshman talking Welsh. These garbanzos require
much soaking, being otherwise hard as bullets; indeed, a lively
Frenchman, after what he calls an apology for a dinner, compared them,
in his empty stomach, as he was jumbled away in the dilly, to peas
rattling in a child’s drum.
The veritable _olla_--the ancient time-honoured _olla podrida_, or pot
pourri--the epithet is now obsolete--is difficult to be made: a
tolerable one is never to be eaten out of Spain, since it requires many
Spanish things to concoct it, and much care; the cook must throw his
whole soul into the pan, or rather pot; it may be made in one, but two
are better. They must be of earthenware; for, like the French _pot au
feu_, the dish is good for nothing when made in an iron or copper
vessel; take therefore two, and put them on their separate stoves with
water.
[Sidenote: THE OLLA PODRIDA.]
Place into No. 1, _Garbanzos_, which have been placed to soak
over-night. Add a good piece of beef, a chicken, a large piece of bacon;
let it boil once and quickly; then let it simmer: it requires four or
five hours to be well done. Meanwhile place into No. 2, with water,
whatever vegetables are to be had: lettuces, cabbage, a slice of gourd,
of beef, carrots, beans, celery, endive, onions and garlic, long
peppers. These must be previously well washed and cut, as if they were
destined to make a salad; then add red sausages, or “_chorizos_;” half a
salted pig’s face, which should have been soaked over-night. When all is
sufficiently boiled, strain off the water, and throw it away. Remember
constantly to skim the scum of both saucepans. When all this is
sufficiently dressed, take a large dish, lay in the bottom the
vegetables, the beef in the centre, flanked by the bacon, chicken, and
pig’s face. The sausages should be arranged around, en couronne; pour
over some of the soup of No. 1, and serve hot, as Horace did: “Uncta
satis--ponuntur oluscula lardo.” No violets come up to the perfume which
a coming olla casts before it; the mouth-watering bystanders sigh, as
they see and smell the rich freight steaming away from them.
[Sidenote: BACON.]
This is the olla _en grande_, such as Don Quixote says was eaten only by
canons and presidents of colleges; like turtle-soup, it is so rich and
satisfactory that it is a dinner of itself. A worthy dignitary of
Seville, in the good old times, before reform and appropriation had put
out the churches’ kitchen fire, and whose daily pot-luck was
transcendental, told us, as a wrinkle, that he on feast-days used
turkeys instead of chickens, and added two sharp Ronda apples, and three
sweet potatoes of Malaga. His advice is worth attention: he was a good
Roman Catholic canon, who believed everything, absolved everything,
drank everything, ate everything, and digested everything. In fact, as a
general rule, anything that is good in itself is good for an _olla_,
provided, as old Spanish books always conclude, that it contains nothing
contrary to the holy mother church, to orthodoxy, and to good
manners--“_que no contiene cosa que se oponga á nuestra madre Iglesia, y
santa fé catolica, y buenas costumbres_.” Such an olla as this is not to
be got on the road, but may be made to restore exhausted nature when
halting in the cities. Of course, every olla, must everywhere be made
according to what can be got. In private families the contents of No.
1, the soup, is served up with bread, in a tureen, and the frugal table
decked with the separate contents of the olla in separate platters; the
remains coldly serve, or are warmed up, for supper.
The vegetables and bacon are absolute necessaries; without the former an
olla has neither grace nor sustenance; _la olla sin verdura, ni tiene
gracia ni hartura_, while the latter is as essential in this stew as a
text from Saint Augustine is in a sermon:
_No hay olla sin tocino,_
_Ni sermon sin Agustino._
Bacon throughout the length and breadth of the Peninsula is more
honoured than this, or than any one or all the fathers of the church of
Rome; the hunger after the flesh of the pig is equalled only by the
thirst for the contents of what is put afterwards into his skin; and
with reason, for the pork of Spain has always been, and is, unequalled
in flavour; the bacon is fat and flavoured, the sausages delicious, and
the hams transcendantly superlative, to use the very expression of
Diodorus Siculus, a man of great taste, learning, and judgment. Of all
the things of Spain, no one need feeling ashamed to plead guilty to a
predilection and preference to the pig. A few particulars may be
therefore pardoned.
[Sidenote: PIGS OF ESTREMADURA.]
In Spain pigs are more numerous even than asses, since they pervade the
provinces. As those of Estremadura, the _Ham_pshire of the Peninsula,
are the most esteemed, they alone will be now noticed. That province,
although so little visited by Spaniards or strangers, is full of
interest to the antiquarian and naturalist; and many are the rides at
different periods which we have made through its tangled ilex groves,
and over its depopulated and aromatic wastes. A granary under Roman and
Moor, its very existence seems to be all but forgotten by the Madrid
government, who have abandoned it _feræ naturæ_, to wandering sheep,
locusts, and swine. The entomology of Estremadura is endless, and
perfectly uninvestigated--de minimis non curat Hispanus; but the heavens
and earth teem with the minute creation; there nature is most busy and
prolific, where man is most idle and unproductive; and in these lonely
wastes, where no human voice disturbs the silence, the balmy air
resounds with the buzzing hum of multitudinous insects, which career
about on their business of love or food without settlements or kitchens,
rejoicing in the fine weather which is the joy of their tiny souls, and
short-lived pleasant existence. Sheep, pigs, locusts, and doves are the
only living things which the traveller will see for hours and hours. Now
and then a man occurs, just to prove how rare his species is here.
Vast districts of this unreclaimed province are covered with woods of
oak, beech, and chesnut; but these park-like scenes have no charms for
native eyes; blind to the picturesque, they only are thinking of the
number of pigs which can be fattened on the mast and acorns, which are
sweeter and larger than those of our oaks. The acorns are still called
_bellota_, the Arabic _bollot_--_belot_ being the Scriptural term for
the tree and the gland, which, with water, formed the original diet of
the aboriginal Iberian, as well as of his pig; when dry, the acorns were
ground, say the classical authors, into bread, and, when fresh, they
were served up as the second course. And in our time ladies of high rank
at Madrid constantly ate them at the opera and elsewhere; they were the
presents sent by Sancho Panza’s wife to the Duchess, and formed the text
on which Don Quixote preached so eloquently to the goatherds, on the
joys and innocence of the golden age and pastoral happiness, in which
they constituted the foundation of the kitchen.
[Sidenote: KILLING A PIG.]
The pigs during the greater part of the year are left to support nature
as they can, and in gauntness resemble those greyhound-looking animals
which pass for porkers in France. When the acorns are ripe and fall from
the trees, the greedy animals are turned out in legions from the
villages, which more correctly may be termed coalitions of pigsties.
They return from the woods at night, of their own accord, and without a
swine’s general. On entering the hamlet, all set off at a full gallop,
like a legion possessed with devils, in a handicap for home, into which
each single pig turns, never making a mistake. We have more than once
been caught in one of these pig-deluges, and nearly carried away horse
and all, as befell Don Quixote, when really swept away by the
“far-spread and grunting drove.” In his own home each truant is welcomed
like a prodigal son or a domestic father. These pigs are the pets of the
peasants; they are brought up with their children, and partake, as in
Ireland, in the domestic discomforts of their cabins; they are
universally respected, and justly, for it is this animal who pays the
“rint;” in fact, are the citizens, as at Sorrento, and Estremenian man
is quite a secondary formation, and created to tend herds of these
swine, who lead the happy life of former Toledan dignitaries, with the
additional advantage of becoming more valuable when dead.
It is astonishing how rapidly they thrive on their sweet food; indeed it
is the whole duty of a good pig--animal propter convivia natum--to get
as fat and as soon as he can, and then die for the good of his country.
It may be observed for the information of our farmers, that those pigs
which are dedicated to St. Anthony, on whom a sow is in constant
attendance, as a dove was on Venus, get the soonest fat; therefore in
Spain young porkers are sprinkled with holy water on his day, but those
of other saints are less propitious, for the killing takes place about
the 10th and 11th of November, or, as Spaniards date it, _por el St.
Andres_, on the day of St. Andrew, or on that of St. Martin; hence the
proverb “every man and pig has his St. Martin or his fatal hour, _á cada
puerco su San Martin_.”
The death of a fat pig is as great an event in Spanish families, who
generally fatten up one, as the birth of a baby; nor can the fact be
kept secret, so audible is his announcement. It is considered a delicate
attention on the part of the proprietor to celebrate the auspicious
event by sending a portion of the chitterlings to intimate friends. The
Spaniard’s proudest boast is that his blood is pure, that he is not
descended from pork-eschewing Jew or Moor--a fact which the pig genus,
could it reason, would deeply deplore. The Spaniard doubtless has been
so great a consumer of pig, from grounds religious, as well as
gastronomic. The eating or not eating the flesh of an animal deemed
unclean by the impure infidel, became a test of orthodoxy, and at once
of correct faith as well as of good taste; and good bacon, as has been
just observed, is wedded to sound doctrine and St. Augustine. The
Spanish name _Tocino_ is derived from the Arabic _Tachim_, which
signifies fat.
[Sidenote: PORK OF MONTANCHES.]
The Spaniards however, although tremendous consumers of the pig, whether
in the salted form or in the skin, have to the full the Oriental
abhorrence to the unclean animal in the _abstract_. _Muy puerco_ is
their last expression for all that is most dirty, nasty, or disgusting.
_Muy cochina_ never is forgiven, if applied to woman, as it is
equivalent to the Italian _Vacca_, and to the canine feminine compliment
bandied among our fair sex at Billingsgate; nor does the epithet imply
moral purity or chastity; indeed in Castilian euphuism the unclean
animal was never to be named except in a periphrasis, or with an
apology, which is a singular remnant of the Moorish influence on Spanish
manners. _Haluf_ or swine is still the Moslem’s most obnoxious term for
the Christians, and is applied to this day by the ungrateful Algerines
to their French bakers and benefactors, nay even to the “_illustre
Bugeaud_.”
The capital of the Estremenian pig-districts is _Montanches_--mons
anguis--and doubtless the hilly spot where the Duke of Arcos fed and
cured “ces petits jambons vermeils,” which the Duc de St. Simon ate and
admired so much; “ces jambons ont un parfum si admirable, un goût si
relevé et si vivifiant, qu’on en est surpris: il est impossible de rien
manger si exquis.” His Grace of Arcos used to shut up the pigs in places
abounding in vipers, on which they fattened. Neither the pigs, dukes,
nor their toadeaters seem to have been poisoned by these exquisite
vipers. According to Jonas Barrington, the finest Irish pigs were those
that fed on dead rebels: one Papist porker, the Enniscorthy boar, was
sent as a show, for having eaten a Protestant parson: he was put to
death and dishonoured by not being made bacon of.
[Sidenote: A MEAT OMELETTE.]
Naturalists have remarked that the rattlesnakes in America retire before
their consuming enemy, the pig, who is thus the _gastador_ or pioneer of
the new world’s civilization, just as Pizarro, who was suckled by a sow,
and tended swine in his youth, was its conqueror. Be that as it may,
Montanches is illustrious in pork, in which the burgesses go the whole
hog, whether in the rich red sausage, the _chorizo_, or in the savoury
piquant _embuchados_, which are akin to the _mortadelle_ of Bologna,
only less hard, and usually boiled before eating, though good also raw;
they consist of the choice bits of the pig seasoned with condiments,
with which, as if by retribution, the paunch of the voracious animal is
filled; the ruling passion strong in death. We strongly recommend _Juan
Valiente_, who recently was the alcalde of the town, to the lover of
delicious hams; each _jamon_ averages about 12 lb.; they are sold at the
rate of 7½ _reales_, about 18_d._; for the _libra carnicera_, which
weighs 32 of our ounces. The duties in England are now very trifling; we
have for many years had an annual supply of these delicacies, through
the favour of a kind friend at the _Puerto_. The fat of these _jamones_,
whence our word ham and gammon, when they are boiled, looks like melted
topazes, and the flavour defies language, although we have dined on one
this very day, in order to secure accuracy and undeniable prose, like
Lope de Vega, who, according to his biographer, Dr. Montalvan, never
could write poetry unless inspired by a rasher; “Toda es cosa vil,” said
he, “á donde falta un _pernil_” (in which word we recognize the precise
_perna_, whereby Horace was restored):--
Therefore all writing is a sham,
Where there is wanting Spanish ham.
Those of Gallicia and Catalonia are also celebrated, but are not to be
compared for a moment with those of Montanches, which are fit to set
before an emperor. Their only rivals are the sweet hams of the
_Alpujarras_, which are made at _Trevelez_, a pig-hamlet situated under
the snowy mountains on the opposite side of Granada, to which also we
have made a pilgrimage. They are called _dulces_ or sweet, because
scarcely any salt is used in the curing; the ham is placed in a weak
pickle for eight days, and is then hung up in the snow; it can only be
done at this place, where the exact temperature necessary is certain.
Those of our readers who are curious in Spanish eatables will find
excellent garbanzos, chorizos, red pepper, chocolate and Valencian
sweetmeats, &c. at Figul’s, a most worthy Catalan, whose shop is at No.
10, Woburn Buildings, St. Paneras, London; the locality is scarcely less
visited than Montanches, but the penny-post penetrates into this terra
incognita.
[Sidenote: THE GUISADO.]
So much space has been filled with these meritorious bacons and hams,
that we must be brief with our remaining bill of fare. For a _pisto_ or
meat omelette take eggs, which are to be got almost everywhere; see that
they are fresh by being pellucid; beat these _huevos trasparentes_ well
up; chop up onions and whatever savoury herbs you have with you; add
small slices of any meat out of your hamper, cold turkey, ham, &c.; beat
it all up together and fry it quickly. Most Spaniards have a peculiar
knack in making these _tortillas_, _revueltas de huevos_, which to
fastidious stomachs are, as in most parts of the Continent, a sure
resource to fall back upon.
The _Guisado_, or stew, like the olla, can only be really done in a
Spanish pipkin, and of those which we import, the Andalucian ones draw
flavour out the best. This dish is always well done by every cook in
every venta, barring that they are apt to put in bad oil, and too much
garlic, pepper, and saffron. Superintend it, therefore, yourself, and
take hare, partridge, rabbit, chicken, or whatever you may have foraged
on the road; it is capital also with pheasant, as we proved only
yesterday; cut it up, save the blood, the liver, and the giblets; do not
wash the pieces, but dry them in a cloth; fry them with onions in a
teacup of oil till browned; take an olla, put in these bits with the
oil, equal portions of wine and water, but stock is better than water;
claret answers well, Valdepeñas better; add a bit of bacon, onions,
garlic, salt, pepper, _pimientos_, a bunch of thyme or herbs; let it
simmer, carefully skimming it; half an hour before serving add the
giblets; when done, which can be tested by feeling with a fork, serve
hot. The stew should be constantly stirred with a _wooden_ spoon, and
grease, the ruin of all cookery, carefully skimmed off as it rises to
the surface. When made with proper care and with a good salad, it forms
a supper for a cardinal, or for Santiago himself.
[Sidenote: STARRED EGGS.]
Another excellent but very difficult dish is the _pollo con arroz_, or
the chicken and rice. It is eaten in perfection in Valencia, and
therefore is often called _Pollo Valenciano_. Cut a good fowl into
pieces, wipe it clean, but do not put it into water; take a saucepan,
put in a wine-glass of fine oil, heat the oil well, put in a bit of
bread; let it fry, stirring it about with a _wooden_ spoon; when the
bread is browned take it out and throw it away: put in two cloves of
garlic, taking care that it does not burn, as, if it does, it will turn
bitter; stir the garlic till it is fried; put in the chicken, keep
stirring it about while it fries, then put in a little salt and stir
again; whenever a sound of cracking is heard, stir it again; when the
chicken is well browned or gilded, _dorado_, which will take from five
to ten minutes, _stirring constantly_, put in chopped onions, three or
four chopped red or green chilis, and stir about; if once the contents
catch the pan, the dish is spoiled; then add tomatas, divided into
quarters, and parsley; take two teacupsful of rice, mix all well up
together; add _hot_ stock enough to cover the whole over; let it boil
_once_, and then set it aside to simmer until the rice becomes tender
and done. The great art consists in having the rice turned out
granulated and separate, not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the
case if a cover be ever put over the dish, which condenses the steam.
It may be objected, that these dishes, if so curious in the cooking, are
not likely to be well done in the rude kitchens of a _venta_; but
practice makes perfect, and the whole mind and intellect of the artist
is concentrated on one object, and not frittered away by a multiplicity
of dishes, the rock on which many cooks founder, where more dinners are
sacrificed to the eye and ostentation. One dish and one thing at a time
is the golden rule of Bacon; many are the anxious moments that we have
spent over the rim of a Spanish pipkin, watching, life set on the cast,
the wizen she-mummy, whose mind, body, and spoon were absorbed in a
single mess: Well, my mother, _que tal_? what sort of a stew is it? Let
me smell and taste the _salsa_. Good, good; it promises much. _Vamos,
Señora_--go on, my lady, thy spoon once more--how, indeed, can oil,
wine, and nutritive juices amalgamate without frequent stirring? Well,
very well it is. Now again, daughter of my soul, thy fork. _Asi, asi_;
thus, thus. _Per Bacco_, by Bacchus, tender it is--may heaven repay
thee! Indeed, from this tenderness of the meat arises ease of digestion;
here, pot and fire do half the work of the poor stomach, which too often
in inns elsewhere is overtaxed, like its owner, and condemned to hard
labour and a brickbat beefsteak.
[Sidenote: SALAD.]
Poached eggs are at all events within the grasp of the meanest culinary
capacity. They are called _Huevos estrellados_, starred eggs. When fat
bacon is wedded to them, the dish is called _Huevos con magras_; not
that _magras_ here means thin as to condition, but rather as to slicing;
and these slices, again, are positively thick ones when compared to
those triumphs of close shaving which are carved at Vauxhall. To make
this dish, with or without the bacon, take eggs; the contents of the
shell are to be emptied into a pan filled with hot oil or lard, _manteca
de puerco_, pig’s butter: it must be remembered, although Strabo
mentions as a singular fact that the Iberians made use of butter
instead of oil, that now it is just the reverse; a century ago butter
was only sold by the apothecaries, as a sort of ointment, and it used to
be iniquitous. Spaniards generally used either Irish or Flemish salted
butter, and from long habit thought fresh butter quite insipid; indeed,
they have no objection to its being a trifle or so rancid, just as some
aldermen like high venison. In the present age of progress the Queen
Christina has a fancy dairy at Madrid, where she makes a few pounds of
fresh butter, of which a small portion is or was sold, at five shillings
the pound, to foreign ambassadors for their breakfast. Recently more
attention has been paid to the dairy in the Swiss-like provinces of the
north-west. The Spaniards, like the heroes in the Iliad, seldom boil
their food (eggs excepted), at least not in water; for frying, after
all, is but boiling in oil.
Travellers should be cautioned against the captivating name of _manteca
Valenciana_. This Valencian butter is composed (for the cow has nothing
to do with it) of equal portions of garlic and hogs’ lard pounded
together in a mortar; it is then spread on bread, just as we do arsenic
to destroy vermin. It, however, agrees well with the peasants, as does
the soup of their neighbours the Catalans, which is made of bread and
garlic in equal portions fried in oil and diluted with hot water. This
mess is called _sopa de gato_, probably from making cats, not Catalans,
sick.
[Sidenote: GAZPACHO.]
One thing, however, is truly delicious in Spain--the salad, to compound
which, says the Spanish proverb, four persons are wanted: a spendthrift
for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt, and a madman to
stir it all up. N.B. Get the biggest bowl you can, in order that this
latter operation may be thoroughly performed. The salad is the glory of
every French dinner, and the disgrace of most in England, even in good
houses, and from two simple causes; first, from the putting in eggs,
mustard, and other heretical ingredients, and, secondly, from making it
long before it is wanted to be eaten, whereby the green materials, which
should be crisp and fresh, become sodden and leathery. Prepare,
therefore, your salad in separate vessels, and never mix the sauce with
the herbs until the instant that you are ready to transfer the
refreshing result to your plate. Take lettuce, or whatever salad is to
be got; do not cut it with a steel knife, which turns the edges of the
wounds black, and communicates an evil flavour; let the leaf be torn
from the stem, which throw away, as it is hard and bitter; wash the mass
in many waters, and rinse it in napkins till dry; take a small bowl, put
in equal quantities of vinegar and water, a teaspoonful of pepper and
salt, and four times as much oil as vinegar and water, mix the same well
together; prepare in a plate whatever fine herbs can be got, especially
tarragon and chervil, which must be chopped small. Pour the sauce over
the salad, powder it with these herbs, and lose no time in eating. For
making a much worse salad than this, a foreign artiste in London used
some years ago to charge a guinea.
[Sidenote: GAZPACHO.]
Any remarks on Spanish salads would be incomplete without some account
of _gazpacho_, that vegetable soup, or floating salad, which during the
summer forms the food of the bulk of the people in the torrid portions
of Spain. This dish is of Arabic origin, as its name, “soaked bread,”
implies. This most ancient Oriental Roman and Moorish refection is
composed of onions, garlic, cucumbers, chilis, all chopped up very small
and mixed with crumbs of bread, and then put into a bowl of oil,
vinegar, and fresh water. Reapers and agricultural labourers could never
stand the sun’s fire without this cooling acetous diet. This was the
οξυκρατος of the Greeks, the _posca_, potable food, meat and
drink, _potus et esca_, which formed part of the rations of the Roman
soldiers, and which Adrian (a Spaniard) delighted to share with them,
and into which Boaz at meal-time invited Ruth to dip her morsel. Dr.
Buchanan found some Syrian Christians who still called it _ail_, _ail_,
_Hil_, _Hila_, for which our Saviour was supposed to have called on the
Cross, when those who understood that dialect gave it him from the
vessel which was full of it for the guard. In Andalucia, during the
summer, a bowl of gazpacho is commonly ready in every house of an
evening, and is partaken of by every person who comes in. It is not
easily digested by strangers, who do not require it quite so much as the
natives, whose souls are more parched and dried up, and who perspire
less. The components, oil, vinegar, and bread, are all that is given out
to the lower class of labourers by farmers who profess to feed them; two
cow’s horns, the most primitive form of bottle and cup, are constantly
seen suspended on each side of their carts, and contain this provision,
with which they compound their _migas_: this consists of crumbs of bread
fried in oil, with pepper and garlic; nor can a stronger proof be given
of the common poverty of their fare than the common expression, “_buenas
migas hay_,” there are _good crumbs_, being equivalent to capital
eating. In very cold weather the mess is warmed, and then is called
_gazpacho caliente_. Oh! dura messorum ilia--oh! the iron mess digesting
stomachs of ploughmen.
[Sidenote: WATER.]